This Is What It Comes Down To
by MandraKara
Summary: Gavin never thought he'd find himself standing before his father, the now-King of Hell, 300 years post death. Least of all ready to willingly hand his soul over to him. But everything has a price and Gavin's not willing to comply so easily with the old man's wishes. Parts of this are co-written with IlanaNight my Crowley .
1. PreTorture

All you really need to know to understand this is that I roleplay as Gavin on tumblr on a daily basis. And my favorite Crowley, the mun's name is Lani, and I decided that her Crowley would be the one Crowley who takes pity on his lost son and tries to take him back under his wing. However, Crowley has very vague memories of being human, having had most of them (all of the happy ones) tortured out of him when his contract expired, and he only vague remembers drunkenly arguing and violence against his son.

Gavin still seeks Crowley's approval and when Crowley offers him the chance to become a crossroads demon, Gavin denies him stating that he cannot morally agree to corrupt human souls after watching what happened when his father sold his soul. He then proceeded to tell Crowley that if he really wanted his son's soul, he would have to torture him into submitting.

And Gavin requested Crowley torture him himself.

* * *

He couldn't recall how precisely it had come to this. 'This' was of course, sitting in what looked like a cell located somewhere in God only knew what level of Hell it was. The fact that he had agreed to come here at all was a miracle in and of itself. Spending three hundred years avoiding reapers at every corner only to _willingly_ hand himself over to the King of Hell. Either he was finally resigned to fate or he was incredibly desperate. Or incredibly stupid.

Normal lost souls didn't behave like this. If they intended to avoid reapers, they did so for all of eternity. And if they did finally decide to give up, they let the reaper put them in their place. They didn't just waltz right up to the first angel or demon they could find and demand to be stuck in the first place they would fit. Like the missing jigsaw piece in a puzzle that had been lost under the sofa for years.

Of course...Gavin was the exception to every normality. He hadn't been trapped on Earth for refusing to accept his death. On the contrary, he was more than aware of just how dead he was after the appearance of the first reaper that had tried to move him.

He could recall being chased throughout the museum for what felt like hours on end, ducking corners and pressing his back against the wall, eyes darting back and forth frantically only to have the reaper find him again. He could recall the confusion of finding that he wasn't out of breath or the least bit fatigued from the whole ordeal and that no security guard had come running at the sound of unfamiliar voices in the museum after hours. The reaper had prattled on about how no one would ever hear him again and how running away wasn't solving anything. Gavin had _politely _told him to shut the fuck up, slowly backing away from him until his back was pressed up a large glass case. The reaper had stared him down and with no further options, he had done the first thing he could think of which was to quite literally spit in its face, the water most likely a result of the fact that he wasn't fully aware of having drowned. The reaper had screeched angrily at him before grabbing him, and all that the Scottish boy could recall in that moment was his vision going white and the most excruciating pain he'd ever felt in his...existence?

He'd woken up, he didn't know much time had passed, on the floor beneath the case with a searing pain in his chest that had lasted for what seemed like days. It still acted up on occasion, for that matter, when his energy felt drained. If Crowley looked at him hard enough during his little 'sessions' he'd probably find some sort of scars on his son's soul or something. And at least a few others from another three out of the six reapers he'd encountered in his ghostly existence. But he wasn't going to warn the demon about them right off the bat. He wasn't going to give him something to use against him, or negative memories to shove back in his face. Could a torturer manipulate one's memories as a ghost along _with _their memories of life? He didn't have the heart to ask (no pun intended).

That case he'd passed out in front of he would later come to recognize as the one containing his ring; a golden band plated with the MacLeod family crest on it. He had hated his family, more specifically his father and everything the bastard stood for. Yet on the anniversary of his father's death he had found himself awkwardly accepting the family heirloom from his mother and trying to pretend he hadn't secretly observed whatever the fuck had invisibly _attacked_ his father and _killed_ him. He hadn't tried to intervene, afraid that whatever it was would go after him next but needless to say the experience had been...scarring. If only the bastard hadn't _told him _about the damn deal to begin with. Lazy no good drunk he was.

But rather than shove the metal scrap in the back of a drawer and trying to forget all about the old drunk, he found himself wearing the damn ring a few days later. A part of him didn't _want_ to forget no matter much he insisted otherwise. He and his father had done nothing but clash on every subject imaginable. And perhaps, if either of them ever chose to be honest with themself, it was because they were far too similar in personality. And Gavin hated to think that they were _anything _alike, because he sure as hell was _not _an alcoholic. But underneath it all that when the tailor was actually_ sober_ it became more apparent to Gavin that he sounded _just_ like him.

And after having three hundred-something years of thinking about it, he had come to determine that it _wasn't_ that he hated his father. Part of him was just angry at him. Angry at being ignored unless the old man wanted someone to blame everything on. Angry at being told he ought to follow in his father's footsteps when he wanted to be someone else. Angry at his father for _selling his soul to fucking demons _never mind the deal was _for_. And now he was angry that his father was the goddamned _King of Hell_. He couldn't even fathom how a two-bit drunken tailor had become the King of Hell. He had trouble seeing Crowley in that light. If he looked him in the eyes long enough, which he tended not to do for the very reason that he could see right through the vessel to what was left of his father's soul, it angered him even more. Specifically because nothing was the way it used to be. The two of them meeting up again one a ghost the other a demon, three-hundred years after death, was against the natural order.

But if he was completely honestly with himself, it wasn't just anger that he felt. There was fear. And sometimes even the anger was overriden by it. It had nothing to do with the fact that Crowley was the King of Hell, it was his father overall that scared him. And for the life of him, for all the time he'd had to reach his first conclusion, he still didn't know why that was.

But he supposed it didn't really matter if Crowley was just going to find a way to torture the answer out of him regardless of whether or not he knew. And part of him wanted to be tortured for the simple fact that it gave him an excuse to tell him _everything _for once without hiding behind his ego. So even if he ended up unable to morally agree to Crowley's terms and ended up being erased from existence forever, at least the demon would know the truth.

He sighed, the sensation of being able to breathe for the first time since 1723 a rather odd sensation, his gaze remained on the wall, unfocused.

There were only two ways this could end: badly or _very _badly.

* * *

These drabbles I write are separate from the RP itself. Meaning they canonically are written and have happened, but these were only written by me in Gavin's POV with any references to Crowley made with Lani's agreement.

RP accounts:

Gavin: .com

Crowley .com


	2. Midtorture

This is one is more a third person POV of Gavin and Crowley mid-torture, but Lani seemed to have no complaints on how I went about it, so.

If anyone's wondering, Lani is supposed to be writing the torture scene herself. This is just me writing part of it from Gavin's point of view.

* * *

Crowley hadn't been kidding about how rough the tortures of Hell really were. Gavin had been through the motions for what had to have been months now. Though he could never be quite certain of just how must time had passed, for the last time he had asked, "How long's it been?" the King of Hell had simply answered him with, "Not long enough." and a pitying glance that had vanished the moment it appeared. Nothing else to keep him occupied in the passing span of time, Gavin had come to focus on and recognize the slightest shift in expression or change in mannerisms from him. Sometimes Crowley seemed dissociatively absorbed in what he was doing, oblivious to the fact that he was torturing his human son. Other times the slightest things, an eyetic or a few seconds hesitation in choosing an instrument were proof enough that this wasn't something he was doing willingly, he was doing it on Gavin's adamant insistence that _he _be the one to do it.

This morning (or, he could only assume it was morning, there wasn't really a visible day or night in Hell that he could see) had turned out ever so slightly different than normal. Crowley had appeared as he always did, looked at him with that same stifled pity look and offered him the blade. For the first time, Gavin said nothing snippy in response, opting to keep his gaze remaining fixed on the wall of the cell. Crowley had repeated himself, sarcastically asking if Gavin had screeched himself deaf during their last encounter. The Scottish boy had ignored him again, giving no indication to show that he had even heard him. Crowley had approached him, weaponless for once, likely hoping that Gavin refused to respond because he'd given up. And Gavin had waited until the demon was about a foot away from him, probably going to give him some verbal spiel about why he should just give in now, before finally turning his head to spit violently in the demon's face. Crowley had snarled at him and proceeded to backhand him across the face for it before turning and storming back over to his cart of torture instruments.

Gavin was more than aware when Crowley turned to look back at him finally, that his emotions were written more clearly on his face than ever for the first time since his mother's death while he was still a child. His dark brown eyes were widened in a rather horrified expression, and his face was tilted on the side that had been slapped, unable to lift either of his arms to it. He hadn't been _slapped _since he was twenty-five years old. He could vaguely remember returning from spending the morning in town to find the old man _already drunk in the middle of the afternoon_. Gavin had proceeded to holler and bitch at him louder than usual and finally to shove the whole bottle of scotch off the table and onto the floor where it had shattered before the bastard had backhanded him across the face and threatened to quite literally ring his neck if he didn't the hell get out of his sight, grabbing him by the collar in emphasis. Gavin had shoved him away from himself as hard as he could and then stormed out of the house to his father cursing at him to 'never come back or he'd kill him'. It was an empty drunken threat of course, one that his father would later forget, and Gavin had given him about a week before he'd finally returned home.

Gavin's expression was really all it had taken for Crowley to recognize _why _regular torture alone wasn't working on an ordinary boy whose soul should have easily already been corrupted by merely existing in the plains of Hell itself. It was because Gavin wasn't here on any immediately classifiable sin, the largest scar on the Scottish boy's soul was his _own_. And it was all made up of guilt and fear. Even if Crowley didn't _remember_ things as vibrantly as Gavin did, having been drunk more often than not and most of his memories having been futzed with when he was turned into a demon, there was no mistaking that smacking Gavin in the face had rubbed the boy in the worst way possible.

Needless to say that everything Gavin had decided about Crowley and his mannerisms and his indifference thus far went out the window at that point. Because suddenly the demon began acting different. Not a good type of different either, _familiar _different. And it was the most _unwelcome _thing he ever wanted to find himself faced with, now of all times. It didn't matter that the vessel looked nothing like him and that the accent was from a different country - the _mannerisms _and_ tone _he spoke in and the sudden mood-swing into a _different personality,_ one that in _no way _belonged to Crowley himself...those were _his father's _he'd recognize that anywhere, and it without a shadow of a doubt scared the hell out of him.

He didn't bother to verbally tell Crowley that his little epiphany was hurting him more than any of the physical violence being done to his soul, but he didn't have to either. It was more than apparent in the fact that his reactions were completely genuine now - no more cursing the demon out between screams of pain and once or twice he'd caught himself whimpering underneath trying to catch his breath. But that was the point, he knew, for the demon to force him to cave in and _this _was what worked. Because it wasn't the phony-accented King of Hell that scared him, for all the power he possessed. His _real father _was the one thing that scared Gavin more than anything, and he would've never admitted that to anyone.

He'd tolerated Crowley's little session for the day. If...tolerated constituted as screeching until his voice was completely shot and his throat was raw, and his vision had blurred beyond recognition, and every fiber of his being was ablaze in agony, and his breathing had diminished into choked hiccuping noises. Or the latter might have been due in part to the fact that the moment the King of Hell was out of sight, he had curled in on himself and begun to sob, tears spilling over for the first time in over three hundred years.

He wouldn't last another full session of Crowley acting like that, that much was painfully obvious. No less if demon chose to involve scotch the next time around, he doubted he would last five minutes before his overall sanity cracked and he wound up begging his father to stop and that he would comply with whatever he wanted so long as he _never _had to experience _that_ again.


	3. HeadcanonsFlashbacks

asdfljghlj. I just decided to throw these here too because Lani, Moose (our Sam, don't ask why but we ship Crowley/Sam, and the three of us have a OOC RP family) and I were wondering what might be going on in Gavin's head flashback-wise if Crowley starts acting like Fergus again.

Lani says Crowley still remembers the second memory entirely out of guilt but has no recollection of the first.

Also the second headcanon was inspired by Moose.

There's only mild dialogue in this one. You'll come to find that unless we're writing OOC RPs, Gavin doesn't talk much simply for the fact that his accent's really thick and other than Crowley most people have a hard time understanding him. /Scotland Highlands problems, as Lani and I would say

Also, writing Scottish accents looks terrible, I'm sorry in advance.

~MK

* * *

When Gavin's father was completely hammered-as-hell he was actually much easier to tolerate and against his better instincts, Gavin often found himself watching over the old man just to ascertain that he wasn't going to drink himself to an early death. He would wander in and out of the living room of their house throughout the night making sure his father was still conscious and that he wasn't going to vomit all over everything, and eventually the old man would either pass out in his chair or Gavin would work up the nerve to coax him into bed and continue to watch over to ensure he didn't aspirate in his sleep.

From time to time, when he was still coherent enough, his father would actually thank him for taking care of him, though he'd never remember having done so the next morning, and Gavin was afraid that it would stop if he ever mentioned it. And Gavin held tight to the one night he'd found himself just sitting at the foot of his father's bed all night in concern for him. His father had awakened in the middle of the night to find Gavin dozing off where he was sitting, and in the deliriousness of being half-conscious had told his son that he was glad that he was there and that he didn't know where he would be without him. Unsure how to respond to the sudden affection, Gavin had reached over to squeeze his hand and had muttered calming words in Gaelic until his father had fallen asleep again.

It wasn't until the curses started spilling and the shot glasses started flying and a fist was aimed at his face that Gavin's patience with his father's drinking would snap and he would lose his temper and holler at the miserable old drunk before storming out of the house and off into town for hours on end until they had both cooled off.

He liked his father better as a miserable and sick drunk than a violent and raging one. Because sometimes he couldn't tell if his father had a split-personality or if the alcohol was the only thing that gave him an opinion of his son at all.

* * *

Despite knowing full-well that his father had damned his soul to Hell, Gavin never stopped praying to God for assistance.

He only made the mistake of _referring_ to God in his father's presence once, however. He was still sixteen years old, he'd come home from town on the anniversary of his mum's death to find the living room looking like a hurricane had hit, belongings strewn all over the place having likely been thrown about in a fit of rage. Spools of thread and needles lined the floor among other things, and Gavin had to tiptoe carefully not to step on anything.

"Sewin' drunk again, are we, Da? How many times did ye stab yerself this time? Din't sew yer own hand again I hope."

He'd received a few rather _interesting _words in their mother tongue in response to his sarcasm, but then, that seemed to be the only language his father addressed him in these days. And Gavin was afraid that if he had been anything _other _than sardonic, that he would have gone off on the tailor for turning their living room into a sewing explosion that Gavin would likely end up cleaning up _for him _only to be later hollered at that everything was out of place and he was stupid not to know by now where things went.

"God help ye, in that case." He'd scoffed back at him, continuing to speak English if only just to spite the old man further. He rolled his eyes and spun on his heel to leave the room when a loud _thunk _resounded followed by the shatter of glass and the teenager stumbled and fell facedown onto the floor, his vision momentarily having gone black.

He could have been out for minutes or perhaps it had been hours. All he knew was that when he came to he was lying in his bed, there was a searing pain in his right shoulder, he had a migraine forming on the same side, and when he forced his eyes open with a whimper of discomfort he was met with his father's guilty green eyes staring back at him from where he was seated at the foot of his bed.

"Ye shouldn't be baitin' me like dat, boy."

Of _course_ he would blame the incident on Gavin rather than himself, but the solemn note in his voice didn't go unnoticed. It was the closest he was going to get to an apology. Gavin said nothing in response, his voice stifled by waves of pain and nausea.

He would later come to find out that a half-full bottle of scotch had been thrown at his head, however his father's aim had been slightly off and that it had nailed him in the shoulder instead. His shoulder had been sliced open and a few slivers of glass had shattered into his ear permanently damaging it.

The oddest part was, however, that the wound had been cleaned and stitched. Without a stitch out of place. And Gavin was certain he hadn't been out long enough to have been taken to a doctor.

He made a mental note to be less harsh about his father's sewing skills.


	4. We Only Hurt The Ones We Love

Alright. This is Lani's chapter. So it's written in third-person Crowley's POV, and I gave her free reign of what happened with Gavin. After I wrote that drabble of him being afraid of Fergus as opposed to Crowley, that ended up becoming how she ended this, so.

* * *

Crowley stood outside the door to Gavin's chamber, fingering the blades on the cart beside him before opening the door with a sigh. He found Gavin sitting on the floor, ankle chained down.

"Haven't changed your mind, have you?" Crowley asked, half hoping that Gavin had, so he wouldn't have to go through with this.

Gavin shook his head, sneering up at the vessel that held his father's demonic spirit. "'M never goin' ta change me mind. Yer not goin' make me into ye." He bared his chin in defiance, staring into the dark green eyes that held a careful blankness. "Just get yer little show over with. 'M already bored."

Crowley sighed, snapped his fingers, and Gavin was strung up in front of him. "Alright, then I'll have to begin. Don't listen to me. Not a word I say." He walked back over to the cart, picking up a butterfly knife and running his thumb over the razor sharp blade, leaving a thin slice which he quickly healed.

He took the knife and sliced open the shirt Gavin had been wearing, cutting it to pieces until it fell to the floor. Crowley then began running the butterfly knife across his ribs with slight pressure behind it, splitting the skin and watching as the blood ran in between the horizontal cuts. Once he had cut across all of the ribs deep enough to have reached muscle membranes rather than skin, he made a cut of matching depth vertically down either side of Gavin's torso.

He swiftly replaced the butterfly knife, picking up a thin pair of tongs, filed to dangerous points, and a beaker of salt, careful not to touch the rim. He gripped the tongs tightly, pulling up at the corner of the lowest rectangle of flesh outlined on Gavin's chest. Crowley swiftly yanked the skin away from muscle and bone, then dusted a light coat of salt over the open wound.

He repeated this up each rib, trying his hardest to ignore the gasps and screams his actions were forcing out of Gavin. When Gavin's torso could no longer be recognized, Crowley gathered up his tools and walked out the door without a word.

The cycle of harsh actions repeated for weeks on end. Sometimes Crowley would take up the cat o' nine tails and flay the skin from the bone, other days it was knives with blessed blades and demonic hilts. But, at the start of every new day, Crowley would offer Gavin the blade, and get a curse in return.

Twenty years into Gavin's torment, and Crowley's starting to believe he's lost himself more than Gavin has. Taking up a blade again both pained and completed him. He was a demon in sales for a reason. Most of him had no desire to hear the screams, the dark curses and secrets spilling from tortured deep down, there was a piece of his shredded, hell-blackened, sorry excuse for a soul that took savage glee in the shrieks of pain.

But still Gavin refuses the knife, sneers and spits in the face of the vessel who held his father's spirit. His screams and blasphemies echo through the halls just as every other soul's, but his hold more strength of spirit. Crowley begins to think that Gavin would never break, that somehow his son had grown up to be even more righteous and moral than Heaven's Righteous Man.

That assumption changes when Crowley enters the room an hour earlier than usual, intending to leave early to pick up a contract in the evening. He had expected that Gavin would be awake, his son always was when he came in. But, it seemed that Gavin's internal clock was set an hour later, and the boy was still asleep in his cell.

It was not a peaceful sleep, by any means. Gavin was thrashing and writhing, as much as he could with a leg chained to the wall. Crowley stood in the doorway, watching, wondering what could possibly be causing these night terrors. From the lack of anguished screams, it couldn't possibly be his torture sessions tormenting him in his dreams.

Crowley leaned forward, attempting to hear the soft words being mumbled. He heard a spattering of Gaelic that made very little sense to him. He had lost command of the language along with most of his memories of being human. What few words he knew were from the bleary memories of cursing Gavin out whilst drunk. Though, when he listened closely…

The phrases were ones he recognized. Soft spoken curses and exclamations of pain. Snippets of a language that sounded mostly foreign. But these words, they were well known. Then realization struck.

Gavin would never give into him like this. In this vessel, speaking with this voice, he wasn't Gavin's father. He was Crowley, the demon who wanted another servant in his house. Crowley couldn't break Gavin, Fergus would have to. With a deep breath, he shed his vessel's form, stretching out and adjusting to be in the physical manifestation of his past self.

"Oy, getcher arse up. 'S'time fer a new day, boy," Crowley called out in a voice he hadn't heard come from his own mouth in almost 300 years. He watched as Gavin leapt awake, crouching in the farthest corner from him possible with wide-eyed fear.

"How..how'd ye get here?" Gavin watched his father's form saunter over to the table and pick up a knife that was familiar by now, testing the blade for sharpness the same way as always, lightly slicing his own hand.

Crowley chuckled, the rumble coming out lower than usual in his old body, "Well, boy, s'always been me. Mayhaps I's lookin' a bit different, but s'still me in here. Me. I's the one hurtin' ye, Gavin." He takes a brief pause, flipping the knife in his hands. "Me. Not 'Crowley', the demon ye dun know. S'yer Father doin' it. Yer Father holdin' the knife out to ye ev'ry mornin', then cuttin' ye up afterwards."

**Gavin twitched, curling in on himself, attempting to cover his ears and block out Crowley's words. As his father's monologue continued, he felt the sliver of hope he had held onto for decades crack. His own father had truly become a demon who tortured without mercy.**

**Crowley stopped talking and flipped the knife one last time, catching it by its blade and offering Gavin the handle. "So, whadye say, boy? Ye gun man up and pay me back fer wha' I did to ye?"**

**What he wasn't expecting was Gavin's scream of anguish and the shadowed resignation on his face. Nor did he expect his son to stagger up of the floor of his cell and swipe the knife from his hand with a horridly blank expression.**

* * *

So, there's another part of this. I guess I'm writing it unless I can convince Lani to write it with me. And it's just as important as this because it's kind of the aftermath...kind of. Anyway. Meanwhile I get to listen to Lani go, "MK, how do write Scottish" "I dunno, Lani, how do write Scottish and not sound Irish in my head?"

I hear Irish in my head when I write Gavin's accent, for anyone wondering. And I know that's wrong. But I can't think in Scottish. Lani, on the other hand, has been to Scotland before and she can do a pretty decent spoken accent. So her grammar is probably close to phonetic than mine here, just saying. But Crowley doesn't go Scottish all that often, lucky for her.


	5. Turnabout's Fairplay, Methinks

Forewarning that for a bit now instead of putting all of these together they're going to be grouped in twos. They don't read very well otherwise.

Crowley's written by my lovely girlfriend Lani (ilananight here on FFN) and Gavin's written by me.

* * *

Knife shaking in his hand, he flips the blade to point it at his father's chest, unaccustomed to the somewhere around eight inch height difference between his father and the vessel he normally occupies; he's at least a good three inches taller than Gavin. It disconcerts him, and he can't bring his gaze to look up that far to gauge his father's expression, but he doesn't have to. The demon just grabs his wrist mid-swing, pressing his thumb into the pressure point in warning, causing the knife to drop to the floor with a loud clatter and the Scottish boy to let out a startled yelp.

He stammers out a curse in Gaelic attempting to turn his wrist free from the demon's grasp to no avail and he's more than aware that his whole form is shaking in the fearful adrenaline-rush of seeing his father again for the first time in somewhere around three-hundred years. Though…that isn't entirely accurate. He's more than aware that Crowley is father now that it's been smacked clear across his face this way.

Crowley held Gavin's wrist tightly, eyes wide with surprise. He hadn't expected his son to cave and take the knife so quickly. He quickly hid his surprise behind a toothy smile. "So, ye fin'ly got yeself the strength ta stand up ta me, didye?"

He grinned darkly down at him before throwing him back by his wrist. "Now, s'time fer my comeuppance. But, yer gonna do it on me terms. And ta me vessel." As he said this, he walked to where he had left the publisher's body by the door, slipping in. He snapped his fingers, unchaining Gavin from the wall.

"Now, you may start. Let's see if you can force me back out."


	6. Turnabout 2

Gavin stumbled backwards into the wall clutching his wrist to his chest. Comeuppance? Crowley expected him to do a turnabout on him? There was no doubt in his mind at this point that his father was a heartless monster who gave not a care in world for what he'd done to Gavin…but imitating his actions as a means of revenge? There was no way in hell that he was going to do that. He stared defiantly at the demon, finding eye-contact with the vessel much easier than the remains of his father's spirit.

"I be doin' no such thing." he snapped, though his voice still sounded a note or two higher than it normally did even to his own ears, one of which had been damaged by the man in question while they were still alive. This whole thing unnerved him. He didn't want to look at the bastard anymore, not only out of anger at this little stunt he'd pulled, using his real form to mock him…but also out of deep-rooted fear that would probably never heal. He didn't want to force the demon out again. He didn't want to be reminded of the way his father looked down on him, always eyeing him in disdain and lecturing him on how useless he was. No, he'd take Crowley's torture sessions all over again before that.

"I refuse. That amn't part 'o yer deal, ol' min."

Crowley chuckles and wanders in a circle around the cage, tracing the cuffs chained to the wall with his fingers. A quick snap of his fingers had his wrists held in the cuffs above his head, wide smirk plastered on his face. "Oh, but you won't have any choice. You agreed to join me in my business, Gavin. You have to go through the entire initiation."

With another quick snap the locking mechanism on the door activated, sealing the door from the outside. "Those doors are a wonderful creation of Lucifer's, you know. Only open when the soul on the rack has been flayed beyond consciousness to allow the torturer out."


	7. Turnabout 3

"Then we be settin' 'ere fer a wee long while, Ye Majesty." he grumbled, folding his arms across his chest and leaning back against the wall behind him. To his understanding Crowley was stuck in here with him until he complied. If he refused to comply, surely the King of Hell couldn't stay trapped in a cell forever? He would have to let him go eventually, right? Agreeing to Crowley's terms had been a bad idea. Why had Crowley neglected to mention he was going to have to torture him in return? He had no desire to torture anyone least of all the only thing closely resembling family he had left.

He slid down the wall to sit on the ground of the cell, staring at the discarded knife for a moment before using his foot to pull it closer and then picking it up again, turning it over in his hands a few times. He couldn't do this, the man was insane to ask as much of him. He didn't know how to torture. Crowley had centuries of experience, Gavin only knew what had been done to him. Along with that salt and holy water could be used as deterrents. But he had no means of acquiring holy water out of thin air, so that was out of the question.

If he knew his father as well as he figured he did, Crowley was going to force him into it one way or another. And he wanted to find the least violent route possible.

A wry smirk flitted across his face as Gavin sat, chuckling low in his throat. "What? You think you can just sit there and stare at me? That's not how this works, boy." Crowley bit his lip hard enough to draw blood, licking it to dye the flesh red.

Well, if the boy was going to play stubborn, Crowley would just have to jump start the endgame himself. "Now, you're going to play along, or I'm going to guide you through it. Pick your poison, son."


	8. Turnabout 4

He kept his gaze on the ground as the demon spoke, but found himself unable to block him out and he grit his teeth for a moment before answering him. "Makin' up rules as ye go amn't 'ow dis works either, but complain' dun seem ta be makin' either 'o us progress. So shuddup." The knife ends up carelessly nicking his palm as he speaks and he drops it with a growl that's more out of frustration than pain of any sort. Surprisingly he doesn't feel it at all for a moment and only registers that he's cut himself at the tingle of warm blood trailing down his wrist. He can only assume its from the adrenaline still coursing through him, because hell if he'd begun to be corrupted already.

"Jus' stop talkin'." he grumbles, absentmindedly examining the blood on his hand. "Ye enjoy the sound 'o yer own voice a li'l too much."

Crowley rolls his eyes and twists his wrists in the chains, making them clink together. "I'm not making up any rules, boy. These are the laws in Hell. And we don't take disobedience lightly." When he sees the blood trickling down, he laughs. "I'm willing to bet you didn't feel a thing. You've already taken up the position of torturer, now you can only bring me pain."

"If you want me to stop, you'll have to make me."


	9. Turnabout 5

He grimaces at the demon's words, picking the knife back up and tossing it in Crowley's direction without even looking up. It hits the wall a bit away from him with a loud clatter that echoes about the cell for a moment before landing at the demon's feet.

"_I told you no, and I meant it."_ He growls, clenching his fists in his lap, trying to ignore the fact that his own bleeding isn't bothering him in the least like it should be. A part of him is almost…alright with it, and he tries desperately to shut that voice up, meanwhile having outwardly flipped languages. He's aware that Crowley doesn't comprehend Gaelic anymore but doesn't bother to translate, hoping that the fact that his words sound angrier in their mother tongue than English might drive the point across. _"I refuse."_

Crowley watches the knife skid to a stop beside his feet with an apathetic expression, toeing the blade. He shakes his head with a smug smirk, chuckling low and sneering down at Gavin. "You can play musical languages all you like, but I don't understand or care to. You're going to take up the blade. You can feel it, can't you?" He pauses for dramatic effect and continues, "Even if you don't yet, soon you will. Your fingers will itch for the blade, and it'll be right there, within reach."

He kicked the blade over so that it was at Gavin's side again, spinning slowly. "There, I've made it even easier for you."


	10. Turnabout 6

Crowley's words had been so much easier to block out before this evening. Before he'd awakened from a nightmare of one of the many occasions in which his father had threatened to kill him if he didn't back off, and he'd defiantly snapped back at him that his mother would be disgusted with him if she could see what had become of him in her absence. The one thing he was more wary of mentioning in his father's Hell-damned presence more than God was his mother. With good reasoning, because the tailor completely flipped his shit on him for even thinking about her before strangling him within an inch of his life.

…Come to find waking up the next morning on their living room floor to their front door being pounded on by people of the town, that the old man had gone and passed out at his mother's gravesite shortly thereafter that, begging for her forgiveness.

The last thing he had wanted to wake up to after a nightmare like that was the bastard in question, specifically when the memory was still clear in his mind and his fear of him was at a high point, and all his father wanted to do was remind him how much he wanted him dead. He could tolerate the fact that Crowley was now Crowley again, but he was beyond the point of shutting him out anymore, and now the more he listened to the demon speak, the greater the desire was to plunge the knife into his throat just to shut him the hell up.

"I don't care if you comprehend me or not." he muttered, refusing to even look at the knife again, and drawing his knees up to his chest. "Yer not turnin' me inta ye._ I refuse_."

He guffaws, licking his lips. Gavin could sit and pout all he wanted, but Crowley knew that with enough persuasion he'd pick up that blade with confidence. He thought back through the foggy mess of his human memories, searching for a way to push his son over the edge. The answer came to him in the form of a song. A lullaby that was barely present on the edge of his conscious. The memory was painful enough to him, and it had no context.

He sneered down at Gavin and began humming.


	11. Turnabout 7

The Scottish boy's head jolted up, his eyes widened in horror. He wasn't supposed to remember. Crowley had claimed he had only the vaguest of human memories and didn't remember Gavin's mother at all. But Aileen had sung that to Gavin nearly every day from the time he was born until the day she was too sick to do so, and then his father had attempted to do so for her until she'd teasingly pointed out that half of his notes were flat.

_Where_ was he getting that song from now and why was it _on-pitch?_

"Why…" he hissed angrily, subconsciously gripping his fingers around the handle of the knife without even taking his eyes off of Crowley. "_What _are you _doing_? Stop it. _Stop that. _You have _no right _to tarnish her memory like that. _**Shut up.**_"

Her memory. So the song was Aileen's, then. No wonder it pained some part of him, to hear himself humming it. He fished around, trying to find the words...Welsh? The song was in Welsh…His pronunciation was probably shot to hell in this vessel, but, why not try while the words were available to him?

"Make me, Gavin."

And he began to sing.

* * *

The song Crowley starts singing is a Welsh folk song called Dacw 'Nghariad ( youtu .be/ Nrkgdj0bVAo). (Take out those space, FFN does not like links.)

Long story short here, because we know, that's not Scottish.

Aileen was from a Welsh tailoring family that moved from Wales to Scotland when she was a teenager (and this logic came about from the fact that Gavin's name is Welsh in origin, not Scottish). So when Fergus was still alive he was about half-fluent in Welsh because of Aileen, and Aileen was half-fluent in Gaelic. Gavin is fluent in both Gaelic and Welsh.

Also Lani mun speaks fluent Welsh in real life, it's a beautiful language.


	12. Turnabout 8

His grip tightened on the knife handle. So the man was a liar. He remembered enough of back then; enough that he _knew_ that Gavin was afraid of him, and enough that he_ knew_ he was hitting a raw nerve with that damned song. His shoulders tensed, and he stalked up to the demon, holding the tip of the knife in front of his nose, stifling his anger as much as possible, though it was becoming increasingly harder to do so.

"Told ye ta _shut up_. 'ell, Mum told ye ta _shut up_ the las' _she _'eard ye sing that 'cos yer so damned tone-deaf, ne'er mind yer pronunciation 'o 'er mother tongue." He pressed the tip of the knife to the vessel's nose. "C'mon, ye kin do be'er 'n that, Da. Keep thinkin', 'm listenin'."

Crowley's grin widens, showing teeth and he pressed up into the knife, a drop of blood running down his nose. He stops singing and thinks for a moment, still humming lightly under his breath. "Oh, I've got it! I finally figured out what seemed so wrong with this place. It's awfully _dry _in here, don't you think?"

Water began to drip in rivulets down the walls and straight down from the ceiling, drenching the chamber's floor.


End file.
